OCR Text |
Show FORTY WARSHIPS ABE IfJ LljOK ATTACK Attempt to Force Dardanelles Darda-nelles Probably Imminent; Censor Deletes Name. (SpoHal Cable by Arrangement With London Dally Telegraph aud luternailoDal Newa Service. ) LONDON, Dec. 6. Interest in the war centered about the naval operation of major proportions which a dispatch from Berlin indicates is imminent. Forty of the allies' warships are reported re-ported to have gathered at a point whose location Is hidden by the censor, but where an attack upon tho enemyu' fortifications for-tifications Involving the passage of the warships through a thickly strewn mine field is about to he made. The point is believed to be the Dardanelles. According to naval authorities here, the only place other than tho Dardanelles that the dispatch could possibly have reference to 1b the Kiel canal, where the German fleet is assembled. It Is argued that the passage referring to strengthening of the forts eliminates Kiel as a possibility, because the forts there were made as strong as was hu-inanly hu-inanly possible before tho war bega n. Besfdes it Is believed that an attack on this German stronghold by tho allies' fleets is out of the question. Then, too, at last reports the French navy was centering its activity in the Mediterranean, where, ever since the war began, the French fleet has been dominant. domi-nant. No French warships are known to be in the Baltic or In the North sea. The new developments also seem to be identified with the Turkish stronghold . by the known fact that German officers detailed with the Turkish fleet from the kaiser's navy have been for some weeks engaged in superintending material improvements im-provements to the system of strongholds along the Dardanelles. German official admissions of the French occupation of Vermelles, between Lens and Bethune in northern France, announced early last week in the French official statements, Indicate to experts here abandonment of the German pla n to make the drive to Calais through this corridor to the north of Arras, because the German war office since the beginning begin-ning of the war has studiously omitted mention of French gains at any point where the progress of the Germans was vital to their strategy. The belief Is now general among the competent military observers that the "march to Calais" will be attempted from a point to the south of Ypres, if at all. |